Day 1477 ~ September 30th, 2014

Day 1475 ~ September 28th, 2014

Day 1474 ~ September 27th, 2014

Day 1473 ~ September 26th, 2014

Day 1472 ~ September 25th, 2014

Day 1471 ~ September 24th, 2014

Day 1470 ~ September 23rd, 2014

Day 1468 ~ Teen DaySeptember 21st, 2014

The girls hosted their teenage friends on our boat with rope-swinging, game playing and teen chatting. Busy, busy, busy.

Day 1467 ~ VolunteeringSeptember 20th, 2014

Mt. Airy village has a Young Readers Program every Saturday where local kids come and practice their reading skills with volunteers from the community. The cruising community became involved and makes the request on our radio Net each morning. Anyone can sign up and a bus is organized for transport. Since one of Nina's friends had to go to fulfill her Community Service credit, Nina decided to join. She ended up having a fun time and wants to go next week.

Day 1466 ~ September 19th, 2014

Day 1464 ~ Friends are AwesomeSeptember 17th, 2014

The first Day Dreamer friends adventure day was a big hit so Nina organized another. Friends came over from a couple different bays and they spent the afternoon on the water and beach.

Day 1462 ~ On Stage in GrenadaSeptember 15th, 2014

Cruising communities generally host a radio Net on the VHF. This a moderated broadcast filled with pertinent information on weather, social activities and local business offerings as well as gives an opportunity for cruisers to ask questions, find parts or announce personal/boat items for sale or trade. The regular Net controller was away so Nina filled in for him this morning, broadcasting her script to a couple hundred boats at least. She did a great job, but doesn't want to do it every week.

Later that night, to add a bit of culture to our sea diet, a London Shakespeare touring company came to town so Nina, I and a few other cruisers arranged a taxi to the community center to watch a live performance of Hamlet. It was well attended and probably had an audience of around 400. Oh, and we could tell they weren't from the islands as they started punctually at the time actually written on the tickets. Amazing.

Day 1461 ~ Concert PianistSeptember 14th, 2014

Cruisers come in all shapes, sizes and backgrounds. We were invited to one of the marinas as every Sunday, a Bulgarian cruiser, who was a concert pianist in a former life and still carries his full-size keyboard on his boat, plays during their Sunday Brunch event. Nina, having taught herself piano, wanted to go listen so we went. She ended up getting more than she bargained as Stamen invited her up to play with him and offered a few tips and pointers. That's the cruising community for ya.

Day 1460 ~ September 13th, 2014

Day 1459 ~ Frozen in the TropicsSeptember 12th, 2014

Cruiser kid boats organized a short production of Frozen to be shown at Prickly Bay Marina. The girls and I hiked over, a 15-minute walk. At the end, the Moms sang their own cruiser version of one of the songs.

Day 1458 ~ Safety TrainingSeptember 11th, 2014

Prickly Bay Marina organized a kids' safety training day. Twenty-seven kids participated, along with some of the parents, so it was a good turnout. Cruisers showed how to properly operate a VHF radio and displayed the contents of an emergency life-raft. The Grenada Coast Guard took the kids on a fast ride (33 knots) on their boat and then, after sunset, we dinghied out to the mouth of the bay to watch several different types of flares in action.

We asked the Coasties how fast their boat could go. They only responded, "It depends".

Day 1456 ~ FriendsSeptember 9th, 2014

Unlike last year, when most of the kids were in Hog Island, this year the kid boats are scattered among the six bays. While getting together a couple times a week to play volleyball is fun, it's not quite enough for Nina. Several times, we suggested inviting everyone to our boat to hang out for the afternoon. We have Sea Pearl and the beach for exploring and a box of games onboard if it rains, so there would be plenty of activities from which to choose.

It took some encouraging, but she finally took to the radio and called out the invitations. Her friends readily agreed and taxis and pick up times at the marina dock in the next bay over were coordinated with ease. For hours they walked the trails, combed the beach and sailed Sea Pearl, or swam by her in this case, and also made plans for the next excursion on the next boat.

It doesn't take much to ignite the social flame, but sometimes we need to give them a little push in the right direction.

Day 1455 ~ September 8th, 2014

Day 1454 ~ Boat JumbleSeptember 7th, 2014

With three lice battles over for the time being, we could concentrate other, more positive things. Sailors, despite the small size of their homes and lack of garages or shops, have lots of treasures stashed in every nook and cranny. Some of these things are useful, others just sit taking up precious space or raising their water line as the boat sits deeper in the water. Like homeowners, they also have come up with a solution to purge this junk. In some of the islands where cruisers tend to sit for months, we have a daily radio Net announcing social events, weather and local business specials and allowing boaters to ask any question to the broader like-minded audience. Most importantly, the Net isn't without a Treasures of the Bilge section.

Sometimes, though, cruisers just need a venue to buy, sell and swap (not only items, but stories too). In the islands, they call it a Jumble Sale (flea market to you landies) and it's a monthly event and very well-attended. However, what they don't realize is that their boats never really get lighter because mostly cruisers attend the event and the junk just moves from one boat to another.

Last year, we mostly purged clothing and household items. This year, we decided to finally off-load two of our three folding bikes. We used them quite a bit in the States where the nearest grocery was at least a mile away. Here in the mountainous islands, many stores have their own dinghy docks and the roads are so narrow and windy that one has to have a death-wish to venture out not surrounded by a metal frame on four wheels. They were like-new when we bought them second-hand three years ago, but have since succumbed to the salty air just like everything else on boats.

The girls were busy at their own table. They collaborated with their friends to offer colorful hair wraps. Not sure if they sold anything, but a good excuse to socialize more with their kind.

Well, after three hours and a couple of browsers, we had to take the bikes home again. Guess no one had a death wish today. In the afternoon, however, we got a call from a local resident who was interested in buying one so we'll see if that comes to anything.

Day 1450 ~ Doing BattleSeptember 3rd, 2014

Making our girls sit for hours at a time and be still would be torture for both of us. I must say that, in a time like lice, Minecraft is a awesome distractor. Nana only took three hours to nitpick and produced fewer than Nika but I know from experience that this war will last several hatchings until we get the very last one. Nina is on tomorrow.

Day 1449 ~ NitpickingSeptember 2nd, 2014

I've only had to deal with lice twice in my entire life, both of which took place on the boat and both were after contact with land, either us staying on land with friends or those from the mainland coming to us. Discovery has an outbreak as well so guessing the transfer happened via one of our guests during the sleepover. Joy.

The first time we discovered it in Massachusetts where Wal-Marts and Targets abound, as do laundromats with hot water. Grenada is another thing altogether. Hot water does not exist in coin-op washing machines. After checking two of the main grocery stores and three pharmacies for any lice product without success, I realized we'd have to come up with a Plan B. Last time we used rubbing alcohol, but the strong odor tends to sting the eyes and nose. Doing some internet research, it turns out that dog shampoo has the same active ingredient as one of the main brands of lice shampoo. Well, we have a dog and, sure enough, our bottle contained Pyrethrin and we're desperate, so guess it's worth a try. I also managed to unearth the lice comb from our US outbreak two years ago so went to work.

I thought I'd be able to tackle at least two heads after lessons, but it took four hours to nitpick Nika's hair, strand by strand. I managed to pull out quite a few, but we'll have to revisit this again in a week and a half when any I missed hatch. Ugh.